The Hippies Were Right!

[proud2BlibKansan]

The Hippies Were Right!
Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time to give the ol' tie-dyers some respect

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, May 2, 2007


Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that's happening right now in the newly "greening" America and don't say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?

I'm talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I'm looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I'm talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation's oddest status symbol. You know, good things.

Look around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new generation of cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth" and even the soulless corporate monsters over at famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they really, really care about saving the environment because, well, "it's the right thing to do" (read: It's purely economic and all about their bottom line because if they don't start caring they'll soon be totally screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal Chinese sweatshops).

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing (albeit fitful, bittersweet) pro-environment sea change now happening in the culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along. Oh yes they did.

more . . .
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2007/05/02/notes050207.DTL&nl=fix

[Nicole]

1. Great topic.

Here's an earlier thread on it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=803320

[jwirr]

2. Many of us are still doing versions of what we believed back then.

I was lucky because at least two of my children were old enough to experience it as a child so they and their children are very into back to the earth ways and my brother and his wife are also. We live on acreages and grow our own food as well as give much of it to our neighbors, recycle, reuse, plant trees, turn off lights and any other thing that we can do.

One of the big lessons we learned when we tried to go back to the earth totally was the unless you have a job or some good capital it will be impossible to start out successfully. So at first we failed but as we moved on we started doing little things and hope to keep moving toward green as fast as we can.

Most of us have stopped using pot and we look just like everyone else - well, my daughters say I don't keep up with the times - but I refuse to change what is comfortable so I can look younger. I am who I am.